Gay fascism is a conspiracy theory alleging that homosexuals were numerous and prominent as a group in the Nazi Party or the identification of Nazism with homosexuality more generally. It has been promoted by various individuals and groups both before and after World War II, especially by left-wing Germans during the Nazi era and the Christian right in the United States more recently Characteristics Of Fascism. Free Inquiry Spring ; Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each Anti-fascist author George Orwell describes fascism in economic terms in a essay, "Shopkeepers At War": Fascism, at any rate the German version, is a form of capitalism that borrows from Socialism just such features as will make it efficient for war purposes
The 14 defining Characteristics Of Fascism
What constitutes a definition of fascism and fascist governments has been a complicated and highly disputed subject concerning the exact nature of fascism and its core tenets debated amongst historians, political scientists, and other scholars since Benito Mussolini first used the term in Historian Ian Kershaw once wrote that "trying to define 'fascism' is like trying to nail jelly to the wall". A significant number of scholars agree that a "fascist regime" is foremost an authoritarian form fascism essay governmentalthough not all authoritarian regimes are fascist.
Authoritarianism is thus a defining characteristic, but most scholars will say that more distinguishing traits are needed to make an authoritarian regime fascist.
Similarly, fascism as an ideology is also hard to define. Originally, it referred to a totalitarian political movement linked with corporatism which existed in Italy from to under the leadership of Benito Mussolini. Many scholars use the word "fascism" without capitalization in a more general sense, to refer to an ideology or group of ideologies which was influential in many countries at many different times, fascism essay.
For this purpose, they have sought to identify what Roger Griffin calls a "fascist minimum"—that is, the minimum conditions that a certain political movement must meet in order to be considered "fascist", fascism essay. Scholars have studied the apocalyptic and millenarian aspects of fascism. Benito Mussolinifascism essay was the first to use the fascism essay for his political party indescribed fascism in The Doctrine fascism essay Fascism as follows: [18].
Granted that the 19th century was the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy, fascism essay, this does not mean that the 20th century must also be the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy. Political doctrines pass; nations remain. Fascism essay are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right', a Fascist century.
If the 19th century were the century of the individual liberalism implies individualism we are free to believe that this is the 'collective' century, and therefore the century of fascism essay State. The Fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value.
Thus understood, fascism essay, Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State — a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values — interprets, develops, and fascism essay the whole life of a people. Fascism is fascism essay religious fascism essay in which man is seen in his immanent relationship with a superior law and with an objective Will that transcends the particular individual and raises him to conscious membership of a spiritual society.
Whoever has seen in the religious politics of the Fascist regime nothing but mere opportunism has not understood that Fascism besides being a system of fascism essay is also, and above all, a system of thought, fascism essay. Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State, fascism essay. Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato [19].
In an interview with Henri Massis inSpanish Nationalist leader Francisco Franco described his movement in Spain as part of a wider trend and said about this trend: [20].
Fascism, since that is the word that is used, fascism presents, wherever it manifests itself, characteristics which are varied to the extent that countries and national temperaments vary. It is fascism essay a defensive reaction of the organism, fascism essay, a manifestation of the desire to live, of the desire not to die, which at certain times seizes a whole people. So each people reacts in its own way, according to its conception of life, fascism essay.
Our rising, here, has a Spanish meaning! What can it have in common with Hitlerism, which was, above all, a reaction against the state of things created by the defeat, and by the abdication and the despair that followed it? In his essay "Ur-Fascism", cultural theorist Umberto Eco lists fourteen general properties of fascist ideology. He uses the term "Ur-fascism" as a generic description of different historical forms of fascism. Fascism essay fourteen properties are as follows:.
Italian historian of fascism Emilio Gentile described fascism in as the "sacralization of politics" through totalitarian methods [22] and argued the following ten constituent elements: [23]. James Gregorco-founder of the International Association for the Advancement of Ethnology and Eugenicsa prominent group in the promotion of eugenics and segregationaffirmed that fascism was a "variant of Sorelian syndicalism" which also included components of neo-idealism and elitist socialism, fascism essay.
Fascism was a variant fascism essay classical Marxism, fascism essay, a belief system fascism essay pressed some themes argued by both Marx and Engels until they found expression in fascism essay form of 'national syndicalism' that was to fascism essay the first Fascism. Furthermore, he believed that post-Maoist China displays many fascist traits. He has denied that fascism is "right-wing extremism. Gregor's work has come under increasing criticism in the 21st century.
In a review of his essay on Neofascist movements, Peter H. Merkl, of the University of California, Santa Barbaraaccuses Gregor of ignoring modern work in favor of his own views, and attempting to force an out of date definition of fascism. Merkl writes:, fascism essay. In comparing the movements of with those of the last 30 years, for example, he [Gregor] ignores the differences between the issues created by the World War I peace settlement and the struggle against non-white immigration.
Historian and political scientist Roger Griffin 's definition of fascism focuses on the populist fascist rhetoric that argues for a "re-birth" of a conflated nation and ethnic people, fascism essay.
The core myth that inspires this project is that only a populist, trans-class movement of purifying, fascism essay, cathartic national rebirth palingenesis can stem the tide of decadence [4]. Griffin writes that a broad scholarly consensus developed in English-speaking social sciences during the s, fascism essay, around the following definition of fascism:.
As such it is an ideology deeply bound up with modernization and modernity, one which has assumed a considerable variety of external forms to adapt itself to the particular historical and national context in which it appears, and has drawn a wide fascism essay of cultural and intellectual currents, both left and right, anti-modern and pro-modern, to articulate itself as a body of ideas, slogans, and doctrine.
In the inter-war period it manifested itself primarily in the form of an elite-led "armed party" which attempted, mostly unsuccessfully, to generate a populist mass movement through a liturgical style of politics and a programme of radical policies which promised to overcome a threat posed by international socialism, to end the degeneration affecting the nation under liberalism, and to bring about a radical renewal of its social, political and cultural life as part of what was widely imagined to be the new era being inaugurated in Western civilization.
The core mobilizing myth of fascism which conditions its ideology, fascism essay, propaganda, style of politics and actions is the vision of the nation's imminent rebirth from decadence, fascism essay. Griffin argues that the above definition can fascism essay condensed into one sentence: "Fascism is a political ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of populist ultra- nationalism, fascism essay.
In his history of Europe in the first half of the 20th century, To Hell and BackBritish historian Ian Kershawwhile noting the difficulties in defining fascism, found these common factors in the extreme Right-wing movements of the late s and early s, whether they called themselves "fascist" or not: [33].
Other features Kershaw found to be important, and sometimes central to specific movements, but not present in all:. Kershaw writes about the essential appeal fascism essay fascism and the reasons for its success, where it was successful primarily in Italy and Germany :. Fascism's message of national renewal, powerfully linking fear and hope, fascism essay, was diverse enough to be capable of crossing social boundaries.
Its message enveloped an appeal to the material vested interests of quite disparate social groups in a miasma of emotive rhetoric about the future of the nation.
It touched the interests of those who felt threatened by the forces of modernizing social change. It mobilized those who believed they had something to lose — status, property, power, cultural tradition — through the presumed menace of internal enemies, and especially through the advance of socialism and its revolutionary promise of social revolution.
However, it bound up those interests in a vision of a new society that would reward the strong, the fit, the meritorious — the deserving in their own eyes. Fascism's triumph depended on the complete discrediting of state authority, weak political elite who could no longer ensure that a system would operate in their interests, the fragmentation of party politics, and the freedom to build a movement that promised a radical alternative. In their book Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thoughtfascism essay, philosophers George Lakoff and Mark Johnson wrote about fascism, in the chapter about morality:.
The Moral Order hierarchy is commonly extended in [Anglo-American] culture to include other relations of moral superiority: Western culture over non-Western culture; America over other countries; citizens over immigrants; Christians over non-Christians; straights over gays; the rich over the poor, fascism essay.
Incidentally, the Moral Order metaphor gives us a better understanding of what fascism is: Fascism legitimizes such a moral order and fascism essay to enforce it through the power of the state. John Lukacsfascism essay, Hungarian-American historian and Holocaust survivor, argues in The Hitler of History that there is no such thing as generic fascism, claiming that National Socialism and Italian Fascism were more different than similar and that, alongside communism, they were ultimately radical forms of populism.
Classical liberal economist and philosopher Ludwig von Misesin his book Liberalismargued that fascism essay was a nationalist and militarist reaction against the rise of the communist Third Internationalin which the nationalists and militarists came to oppose the principles of liberal democracy because "Liberalism, they thought, stayed their hand when they desired to strike a blow against the revolutionary parties while it was still possible to do so. If liberalism had not hindered them, fascism essay, they would, so they believe, have bloodily nipped the revolutionary movements in the bud.
Revolutionary ideas had been able to take root and flourish only because of the tolerance they had been accorded by their opponents, whose will power had been enfeebled by a regard for liberal principles that, as events subsequently proved, was overscrupulous, fascism essay.
The fundamental fascism essay of these movements—which, from the name of the most grandiose and tightly disciplined among them, the Italian, may, in general, be designated as Fascist—consists in the proposal to make use of the same unscrupulous methods in the struggle against the Third International as the latter employs against its opponents. The Third International seeks to exterminate its adversaries and their ideas in the same way that the hygienist strives to exterminate a pestilential bacillus; it considers itself in no way bound by the terms of any compact that it may conclude with opponents, and it deems any crime, any lie, and any calumny permissible in carrying on its struggle.
The Fascists, at least in principle, fascism essay, profess the same intentions. Ernst Noltea German historian and Hegelian philosopher, defined fascism in as a reaction against other political movements, especially Marxism : "Fascism is anti-Marxism which seeks to destroy the enemy by the evolvement of a radically opposed and yet related ideology and by the use of almost identical and yet typically modified methods, always, however, within the unyielding framework of national self-assertion and autonomy.
Kevin Passmore, fascism essay, a history lecturer at Cardiff Universitydefines fascism in his book Fascism: A Very Short Introduction. His definition is directly descended from the view put forth by Ernesto Laclauand is also informed by a desire to adjust for what he believes are shortcomings in Marxist, Weberian and other analyses fascism essay fascism: [38]. Fascist nationalism is reactionary in that it entails implacable hostility to socialism and feminism, for they are seen as prioritizing fascism essay or gender rather than nation.
This is fascism essay fascism is a movement of the extreme right. Fascism is also a movement of the radical right because fascism essay defeat of socialism and feminism and the creation of the mobilized nation are held to depend upon the advent to power of a new elite acting in the name of the people, headed by a charismatic leader, and embodied in a mass, militarized party.
Fascists are pushed towards conservatism by common hatred of socialism and feminism, but are prepared to override conservative interests — family, property, fascism essay, religion, the universities, fascism essay, the civil service — where the interests of the nation are considered to require it.
Fascist radicalism also derives from a desire fascism essay assuage discontent by accepting specific demands of the labour and women's movements, so long as these demands accord with the national priority. All aspects of fascist policy are suffused with ultranationalism. Robert Paxtona professor emeritus at Columbia Universitydefines fascism in his book The Anatomy of Fascism as:.
A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical fascism essay legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.
In the same book, Paxton also argues that fascism's foundations lie in a set of "mobilizing passions" rather than an elaborated doctrine. He argues these passions can explain much of the behaviour of fascists: [39]. Historian of fascism Stanley G. Payne created a lengthy list of characteristics to identify fascism in [40] [41] in summary form, fascism essay, there are three main strands. First, Payne's "fascist negations" refers to such typical policies as anti-communism and anti-liberalism, fascism essay.
Second, "fascist goals" include a nationalist dictatorship and an expanded empire. Third, "fascist style", fascism essay, is seen in its emphasis on violence and authoritarianism, and its exultation of men above women, and young above old.
InNational Public Radio interviewed Jason Stanleya professor of philosophy at Yale Universityregarding his book How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them. Stanley defined fascism as "a cult of fascism essay leader who promises national restoration in the face of fascism essay brought on by supposed communists, Marxists and minorities and immigrants who are supposedly posing a threat to the character and the history of a nation," and further observed that "The leader proposes that only he can solve it fascism essay all of his political opponents are enemies or traitors.
Zeev Sternhella historian and fascism essay of political science, described Fascism as a reaction against modernity and a backlash against the changes it had caused to society, as a "rejection of the prevailing systems: liberalism and Marxism, positivism and democracy.
Marxists argue that fascism represents the last attempt of a ruling class specifically, fascism essay, the capitalist bourgeoisie to preserve its grip on power in the face of an imminent proletarian revolution, fascism essay. Fascist movements are not necessarily created by the ruling class, but they can only gain political power with the help fascism essay that class and with funding from big business.
Once in power, the fascists serve the interests of their benefactors. According to Lukács, the historical significance of Hitler and Mussolini lies not in that they brought anything new to the ideological field, but in that they condensed all existing reactionary and irrationalist ideologies of the past and through their successful national fascism essay social demagogy brought them "from the scholar's study and intellectual coteries to the streets.
German playwright Bertolt Brecht describes fascism as: "a historic phase of capitalism" and " the fascism essay, most shameless, most oppressive, and most treacherous form fascism essay capitalism" Georgi Dimitrova Bulgarian Communistfascism essay, was a theorist of capitalism who expanded Lenin 's ideas and the work of Clara Zetkin.
Delivering an official report to the 7th World Congress of the Communist Third International in AugustBulgarian Communist leader Georgi Dimitrov cited the definition of fascism formulated with the help of Clara Zetkin at the Third Plenum as "the open, terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionarymost chauvinisticand most imperialist elements of finance capital ".
It is not "the revolt of the petty bourgeoisie which has captured the machinery of the state," as the British Socialist Brailsford declares. No, fascism is not a power standing above class, nor government of the petty bourgeoisie or the lumpen-proletariat over finance capital. Fascism is the power of finance capital itself. It is the organization of terrorist vengeance against the working class and the revolutionary section of the peasantry and intelligentsia.
In foreign policy, fascism is jingoism in its most brutal form, fomenting bestial hatred of other fascism essay
The Aesthetic Allure of Fascism
, time: 1:05:33What is fascism, and is Trump a fascist? 8 experts weigh in. - Vox
Anti-fascist author George Orwell describes fascism in economic terms in a essay, "Shopkeepers At War": Fascism, at any rate the German version, is a form of capitalism that borrows from Socialism just such features as will make it efficient for war purposes Gay fascism is a conspiracy theory alleging that homosexuals were numerous and prominent as a group in the Nazi Party or the identification of Nazism with homosexuality more generally. It has been promoted by various individuals and groups both before and after World War II, especially by left-wing Germans during the Nazi era and the Christian right in the United States more recently Jul 16, · In his essay "The Five Stages of Fascism," published in in the Journal of Modern History, he defined seven "mobilizing passions"
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